Illegal Motion

Feb 22–Apr 12, 2015, 3–6pm

Performances by Madeline Hollander, part of Illegal Motion by Madeline Hollander and Alexandra Lerman, will take place on the following dates and times:

February 22, 3 and 5pm
March 29, 4pm
April 12, 3 and 5pm

Hollander through performance and Lerman through sculpture explore the ways physical movements and body language negotiate their limits in the everyday systems of technology, intellectual property law, and sport. Their focus on the formation of new body languages generated by the evolution of interface design, ergonomics, and mediated daily rituals is juxtaposed with an exploration of two of the most traditional forms of art—clay and dance.

Their collaborative piece, Illegal Motion, activates the exhibition space by capturing and displacing the body through sculpture, floor demarcations, and eight performances. Alexandra Lerman has created three terracotta tablets based on the floorplan of the SculptureCenter basement that use "touchscreen gestures" to record the circulation patterns, clay 'memory negatives' of the performers' bodies, as well as iPhone-sized tablets serving as choreographic signals. Madeline Hollander choreographs ten movement sequences that draw from globally recognized corporeal vocabularies such as Apple's multi-touchscreen gestures, the TSA's 'patdown' procedure, and sports referee penalty signals, among others. The performances take place throughout the corridors of the basement, each sequence looping continuously as though doing laps in a swimming pool or running a relay course, while taking directional cues from the floor demarcations. The loop trajectory throughout the galleries undermines the notion of any definitive start or origin of movement. Through excessive repetition, the movements gradually breakdown and slur into abbreviated, more efficient forms of their original selves.